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True Texas Troubadour

January 6, 2025

Me & My Guitar: Bosque Arts Center once again welcomes storyteller extraordinaire and legendary Texas Singer/Songwriter Radney Foster to the Frazier Performance Hall stage for a night of real life, real music Jan. 18

“It’s gotta get dark enough for you to see the stars, shine like diamonds on black velvet. Love is just a word, until you felt it even when life falls apart. Strong enough to break your heart. It's gotta get dark enough For you to see the stars” – Radney Foster “For You To See The Stars” 2017

CLIFTON – This is just an example of storied singer/songwriter/author/musician/music producer Radney Foster’s lyrics that paint an achingly beautiful picture as he strums his guitar and adds his mellow, easy-listening country-twang voice.

Bosque County lovers of traditional country music with moving lyrics get a chance to enjoy storyteller extraordinaire Radney Foster In Concert at Bosque Arts Center’s Frazier Performance Hall Jan. 18. Doors open at 5:30, with the concert beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets to the concert can be bought the BosqueArtsCenter.org website, or by calling the BAC at 254-635-3724. The audience can expect an intimate evening of a man and his guitar, telling life’s stories through song, and telling his life’s stories between songs, in the beautifully restored third-floor Frazier Performance Hall.

Starting off the evening of music will be upcoming Logan Mac, who Foster has been mentoring on his path to becoming a songwriter and musical performer. Foster hopes to create the relaxed vibe of “welcome to my living room, grab a beer, have a seat and listen to some music with me and my guitar.” In a smaller venue, Foster’s set list gets a little looser, allowing for last minute changes depending on the audience’s reactions and suggestions.

Born and raised in Del Rio, Tx, Foster grew up loving a lot of different kinds of music, from Tejano, to Rockabilly, to Rock and Roll, fueled by the music blasted onto the air waves by XERF with fabled and mythical disc jockey Wolfman Jack. And all those influences can be found in his songs. While things have changed and projects have come and gone through the decades, Foster’s guitar and his soulful lyrics about the human condition – falling in love, losing love, losing loved ones, growing older – remain unwavering at the heart of his work.

But more than just words, Foster wants his songs to tell a story, fill you with emotion, move you, making you want to dance, to laugh or to cry. While his Instagram page says “Focus on the good stuff. There’s music, there’s family, there’s love,” Foster definitely stays in touch with the sad side, knowing we all love a good heart wrenching song.

“A good song nearly writes itself, if you have a good idea,” Foster said. “A kernel becomes a blossoming tree.” But sometimes a song, like “Texas in 1880,” which started as a rodeo song, developed over the course of many years to a song about following your own path and doing what you love. Finding his own true voice as part of the successful duo Foster and Lloyd, Foster’s critically acclaimed debut solo album,Del Rio, TX 1959, produced four Top-40 hits. As part of the duo Foster & Lloyd, he co-wrote the number one hit “Crazy Over You” and the top 10 song “What Do You Want from Me This Time?”

And over the decades the songwriters’ songwriter has written countless hits for himself and others. Altogether, Foster’s songs have sold 50 million copies worldwide, between his own releases and those recorded by a diversity of artists like Keith Urban, Brooks and Dunn, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Hootie & The Blowfish, Kenny Loggins, and less obvious artists like George Benson and Los Lonely Boys.

The Texas-born country singer/songwriter is known for his solo hits “Angel Flight,” honoring those pilots bringing home fallen brethren, “Nobody Wins,” about a bad relationship fight and “Just Call Me Lonesome,” about a young man losing his sweetheart to another, and “Closing Time,” about drowning in the sorrow of a break up.

“Just Call Me Lonesome” – Radney Foster, taped for The Dancehall Tapes one of his more rockabilly songs

While Foster is a songwriter and musician first, in recent years he added author of prose to his list of creative endeavors. And it all began when he lost his voice for 12 weeks, and he needed an outlet to help cope with the possible consequences of never being able to sing again and to “keep from going crazy.”

In 2017, he launched the project in two parts, “For You To See The Stars” --a book of short fiction, and a companion CD of the same name with songs relating to the stories, which he presented at the BAC’s Books on the Bosque.

While song lyrics get a melody attached to them, finding the words in prose to sing their own song and become moving to the reader was the big challenge for Foster when he started writing prose. Now he feels the experience has improved his songwriting.

“For You To See the Stars” – Radney Foster, taped at the Factory for Music City Roots, one of his more recent achingly beautiful lyrics

This year, Foster and his wife are hoping to raise funds in Hollywood to bring the screenplay of one of those stories to the silver screen. Continuing to promote country music and new performers, Foster is currently working on another book of fiction, as well as developing a play with singer/songwriter/actor Sarah Aili.

According to the Texas Heritage Songwriter’s Association, Texas songwriters, past and present, reflect in rhythm and rhyme, the essence of Texas culture; they are the poets of their time and have become the symbolic troubadours of the Lone Star State. Their mission, in the interest of Texas Cultural preservation, is to honor and celebrate Texas songwriters who have played an important role in defining and interpreting Texas’ distinctive culture.

Recognizing his unique place in the Texas country landscape, Foster was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2023, joining other illustrious singer/songwriters like Willy Nelson Rodney Crowell, Larry Gatlin, Michael Martin Murphey, Marcia Ball, Willie Nelson, Leftie Frizell, Roy Orbison, Gary P. Nunn, B.J. Thomas, Jack Ingram, Tanya Tucker, Kris Kristofferson, Red Steagall, Lyle Lovett, Waylon Jennings, JD Souther, and Ray Willie Hubbard – many who have graced the BAC stage.

With this concert, thanks to the moving songs and him sharing the stories of himself and rubbing shoulders with many of Country Music’s greats, .Foster takes the audience on an unforgettable musical journey of real life through real music.